Competition is the simultaneous commission of a crime with the intent to cause damage. It is necessary to show concurrence to hold someone legally responsible for a crime. The actus reus is the guilty action, while mens rea is the guilty mind. Attorneys use various means to establish or disprove competition. The single transaction principle can complicate matters.
The competition, in law, is the simultaneous commission of a crime while harboring the intent to cause damage. You need to show concurrence to successfully argue that someone has committed a crime and should be held legally responsible for it, except in a few cases. This concept most commonly arises in criminal law, although it can also be a problem in some types of civil cases.
The guilty action is known as actus reus in law, while the intent to commit a crime is mens rea or “guilty mind”. The request for evidence of competition is an important part of the penal system, as it establishes a clear link between the will to commit a crime and the crime itself.
A case that would meet the competition standard would be where a contractor, hating a rival, kicks the rival’s ladder out from under her while she is working, causing serious injury. The contractor showed both a guilty mind and a guilty act. On the other hand, if the rival contractor is merely walking past a construction site when a fall occurs, this is not a crime, even if the contractor expresses joy at the rival’s fate. The fallen contractor may not appreciate the gratification of the rival for the injury, but no legal error has occurred.
The law recognizes that sometimes, a sequence of events clearly leads to harm even though the guilty act and the guilty mind are not necessarily concurrent. In the example above, if Contractor A sees Contractor B fall and is happy about it, this is not a crime, but if Contractor A leaves Contractor B in a position where more serious injury or death is likely , this will be a felony, even if Contractor A is not present when the secondary injury occurs. According to the logic of the so-called single transaction principle, the actions of Contractor A clearly resulted in damage to Contractor B and the prime contractor engaged in those actions with the intent to harm.
Attorneys may use a variety of means to try to establish or disprove competition in any given case. Things can get especially difficult when people rely on the single transaction principle, as the defense could argue that a reasonable person would not have thought that an action would lead to further injury. To borrow again from our contending contractors, if Contractor A does not ask for help because other workers are on site and should have witnessed the incident, the defense could argue that any injuries sustained are a result of negligence on the part of the team work to not locate and address the original injury.
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